LONDON, May 21: Oil prices leapt up on Wednesday after two sets of statistics for US crude inventories showed the nation could be running alarmingly low on oil ahead of the traditionally petroleum-guzzling summer.

The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for July delivery increased 72 cents per barrel to $26.37, the bulk of the rise taking place after the inventory figures were announced.

New York’s reference light sweet crude June contract rocketed 93 cents to $29.34 in early trading.

Traders were taken by surprise by statistics which showed the United States has around 11 per cent less crude in reserve than at the same time last year, with recent terrorist attacks also adding to the uncertainty.

In the more dramatic figures, the American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that US crude oil stocks had fallen 4.5 million barrels in the week to May 16 from the previous seven days, slumping to 282.6m barrels.

In contrast, the US Department of Energy (DoE) said stocks had risen by 600,000 barrels over the same week, although this amounted to an increase of only 0.2 per cent.—AFP